Wild Garlic Pesto Recipe

It's the brief season for wild garlic (aka ramsons or bear's garlic, Allium ursinum), and I'm excited. I only discovered wild garlic a year ago (see post here), and have been looking forward to them again.

There's a plentiful supply of wild garlic near our house, and early last week I picked some* to make some wild garlic recipes I had spotted elsewhere or 'created' myself. So far I've made the same cucumber and wild garlic salad mentioned last year; a delicious cold tzatziki sauce (wild garlic, cucumber, sour cream, salt); one cold sauce to accompany simple boiled potatoes (wild garlic, cornichons, kefir milk); and this delicious pesto recipe.

The idea behind the pesto is simple. If your usual Pesto Genovese is basil + garlic + parmesan cheese + pine nuts, then instead of basil and garlic I decided to use mild-tasting wild garlic instead. It was a very successful substitution indeed, and I'll be certainly making it again next year.

Have you tried wild garlic before? And what's your favourite use for this delicious wild food?

* Karulauk on Eestis III kategooria kaitsealune taim. Karulaugu korjamine isiklikuks kasutamiseks määral, mis ei ohusta liigi säilimist antud elupaigas, on lubatud; rangelt on keelatud looduslikust kasvukohast korjatud karulauguga kauplemine.

Wild Garlic Pesto
(Karulaugupesto)
Makes 200 ml



100 g wild garlic, rinsed, drained and chopped
50 g toasted pine nuts
150 ml extra virgin olive oil
50 g parmesan cheese, grated
Maldon sea salt, to taste

Place chopped wild garlic and toasted pine nuts into a blender, add about 1/3 of the olive oil and puree until smooth. Stir in the rest of the oil and the grated cheese, season to taste with salt.

Serve with pasta (see above) or stir into your risotto. Keeps covered in the fridge for about a week.

* Toasting pine nuts: heat pinenuts of a hot dry frying pan for a few minutes, shaking the pan regularly, until the nuts are golden brown and aromatic. Cool before use.

WHB: This is also my entry to the Weekend Herb Blogging, this time hosted by Anh of Food Lover's Journey. Click on the logo below for more information about this foodblogging event started by Kalyn.

Weekend Herb Blogging # 106: The Round-Up!

Kalyn kindly trusted me with hosting this week's Weekend Herb Blogging. It has been quite a task! There were 45 entries from far away corners of the world, including New Zealand, Alaska, India, France, Philippines, Spain, Scotland, England, Croatia, Brazil, Canada and USA.

To make this round-up more digestible, I've grouped the entries by the main ingredients. However, I didn't want to make it too easy for you either, so I've listed the ingredients alphabetically, in Estonian ;) I have provided the English equivalents, of course..

Happy browsing!

AEDOAD - GREEN BEANS
Lia of Swirling Notions blog has been cooking with Romano Beans. Lia grows them herself, and is actually looking for more recipe ideas for using these particular beans. So if you know a recipe or two, go and tell Lia!

APTEEGITILL - FENNEL
Katerina (Vancouver, Canada) of Daily Unadventures in Cooking shares a recipe for Fennel Risotto with Goat Cheese. She's using fennel both as a herb and as a vegetable in this creamy risotto, so she's been doubly adventurous in cooking this time!

The Queen of Vegetables, Alanna (St Louis, USA) of A Veggie Venture is also cooking with fennel this week. She shares a simple recipe for delicious-looking roasted fennel. Just look at those gorgeously caramelised fennel chunks!

ARTIŠOKISÜDAMED - ARTICHOKE HEARTS
Burcu of Almost Turkish Recipes is sharing a recipe for Kuzu Etli Enginar aka Artichoke Heart and Lamb Stew. Sounds like a perfect autumn dish to me!





BANAAN - BANANA
Toni (San Diego, USA) of Daily Bread Journal is understandingly distraught about the recent fires in her area, yet manages to bake a comforting Banana-Coconut Bread.

BASIILIK - BASIL
Maninas (Croatia) of Food Matters has given a new twist to the traditional tuna & mayonnaise sandwich by adding some basil leaves from her windowsill - the result is Tuna & Mayo Sandwich with Basil, Lemon and Black Pepper. Maninas reminds us that basil won the honorable title of the most popular herb of last year's Weekend Herb Blogging!

INGVER - GINGER
Charise (Dublin, USA) of more bread and cheese, please! is sharing a recipe for Ginger-Vanilla-Pear Bread. The recipe uses a lot of crystallised ginger - my favourite way of consuming ginger - so I'm definitely bookmarking this one!

KARTUL - POTATO
Potatoes are the staple ingredient in Estonia, so I was excited to see Curry in Kadai's Kalva's (Andhra Pradesh, India) entry for Aloo Pudina Pulla Kura aka Minty Lemony Potato Fry.

There was another exotic potato entry: Sra of When My Soup Came Alive has included a leftover spud into her raita recipe - most unusual, and very intriguing!



KINKAN e. KUMKVAAT - KUMQUAT
Gwen (New York) of the Intoxicated Zodiac gives some zodiac tips for Virgos and shares a recipe for a pomegranite kumquat caipirinha. She's definitely providing the most teasing WHB photo I've seen so far!

VegeYum of A Life(Time) of Cooking (Australia) made a kumquat marmalade and describes it as divine. Cannot disagree with that - I love when you can see tiny black vanilla seeds in your food - be it a kumquat marmalade, plum jam or vanilla custard!

KORIANDER - CILANTRO/CORIANDER
Pam (TN, USA) of Sidewalk Shoes keeps always fresh parsley and cilantro/coriander in her fridge, as using fresh garnish makes all the difference in the world, as she says. She's using cilantro/coriander to garnish this great chicken tortilla soup.

KÕRVITS - WINTER SQUASH/PUMPKIN
The originator of the Weekend Herb Blogging, Kalyn (Salt Lake City, Utah) of Kalyn's Kitchen has come up with a beautiful and colourful recipe for roasted butternut squash - an excellent recipe for the forthcoming Thanksgiving festivities! Thank you, Kalyn, for launching WHB two years ago, and for letting me host this time - it's been fun (though tough)!

The Chocolate Lady (Greenwich Village, New York, USA) is cooking up a storm with bright-coloured uchiki kuri squash. You can find her Late October Lentil Soup with Uchiki Kuri Squash recipe here.

Rosa (Paris&Nice, France) of Edible adventures in Paris, Nice and beyond is also talking about winter squash, but different ones: courge de Nice, potimarron, ridged courge musquée and such like. For her first ever WHB entry (welcome, Rosa!) she's come up with a Provençal classic Tian de courge. Rosa is originally from Canada, but has been working as a food critic and cookbook writer in France for the last dozen years. You can get a glimpse of her life by visiting her blog!

Kevin (Toronto, Canada) of Closet Cooking is exploring the Japanese kabocha squash this week and creates a beautiful kabocha risotto. I love the garnish of deep fried sage leaves and toasted pumpkin seeds. I've been thinking of making a pumpkin risotto myself recently, and will definitely use toasted pumpkin seeds on top.

KÖÖMNED - CARAWAY SEEDS
Ilva (Tuscany, Italy) of Lucullian Delights was thinking of me when deciding which dish to enter for this week's WHB - how sweet is that!? You see, I had told her previously that I really like caraway seeds - a perfect spice to spice up a sauerkraut stew or rye bread and many other dishes. You can see her beautiful creation caraway carrots sweetly resting on a bed of soft goat's cheese. However, if you don't like caraway seeds, then you can use similar-looking (bot NOT similar-tasting!) cumin seeds in this recipe.

LEHTSINEP - MUSTARD LEAVES
Strata (Sunnyvale, CA, USA) of My Bay Area Garden is letting us know about mustard as a salad green and sandwich layer. I grew some mustard leaves in a container this summer, and really liked their subtle mustardy kick! Head over to Strata's blog - she even tells you about different mustard leaf varieties - just look at the colours!!

MÄDARÕIGAS - HORSERADISH
Annemarie (London, UK) of Ambrosia and Nectar was sitting in a cold, herb-less, husband-less house, and prepared a Rack of Lamb, Port and Cranberry Jus, and Parsnip and Horseradish Mash to warm and cheer her up the other day. It must have worked!



MÜNT - MINT
The talented Ximena (Madrid, Spain) of the Lobstersquad blog has been drooling over recipes in Andrea Nguyen´s Into the Vietnamese Kitchen: Treasured Foodways, Modern Flavours and tried various soups from the book. For the WHB, she drew us some lovely mint leaves.

Lissie (Bangalore, India) of Salt & Spice blog has made a coriander and mint chutney that she uses to make this great-looking ribbon sandwich. What a great idea, don't you think?

Syrie (Vancouver, Canada) of Taste Buddies blog used mint both to season and garnish her lamb biryani and to make her after-dinner mint tea. Both very comforting, don't you think? Mint is one of Syrie's favourite herbs. I drink a lot of mint tea, using mint from my mum's garden, but I must admit I've neglected mint as a herb.

PAPRIKA - BELL PEPPER
Mandira (Michigan, USA) of Ahaar: pleasure and sustenance has been throwing some mushrooms and green peppers in with her baked tilapia - a great dish if you need to eat more fish and vegetables!


PEET - BEETROOT/BEET
Shaun (Auckland, New Zealand) of Winter Skies, Kitchen Aglow obviously knows that I've got a soft spot for beetroot. His entry - Beetroot Risotto (adapted from Diane Forley & Catherine Young's The Anatomy of a Dish) - has already been printed out for perusal in our kitchen a.s.a.p. There are two steps to the recipe - first you need to pickle the beetroots, then make the risotto using those pickled beets, but it sure looks lovely!

Sophie (Oxford, England) of Mostly Eating shares a recipe for A warm beetroot, sumac and sweet potato salad that goes well with feta cheese. Sumac is also a great ingredient to use in this salad - its sharpness complementing the earthiness of the beets so well. I love her photo of small different-coloured beets - aren't they cute??

PETERSELL - PARSLEY
Katie (France) of Thyme for Cooking has still got plenty of parsley in her French garden, and she's whisked up this gorgeously yellow parsley and mushroom omelette. If WHB were about giving points, she'd get an extra one for calling me her very favourite Estonian :)

Anna (Sydney, Australia) of Morsels & Musings is using parsley to garnish her Lebanese breakfast dish Fatteh. The dish also contains lots of chickpeas, and sounds really good, so head over to read Anna's recipe.

Paz (New York, USA) of The Cooking Adventures of Chef Paz is also blogging about parsley this week. She fancied one of Ilva's fabulous cauliflower recipes, and is blogging about Very Cheap but Very Good Vegetable Soup. You can never have too many recipes like that, so check it out!

PILI - PILI NUTS
Joey (Manila, Philippines) of the lovely 80 Breakfasts pounded some native pili nuts into this pretty pili nut pesto. Sounds like something to try when I'm ever on these faraway islands!! I must admit I had to search an online database for the Estonian equivalent of pili nuts (Canarium ovatum). Turns out the plant is called pili-kanaripuu and the fruit is pili. Who would have known!?

POMMU e. BAKLAŽAAN - AUBERGINE/EGGPLANT
Patricia (São Paulo, Brazil) Technicolor Kitchen has been making Tomato, Minas cheese and eggplant salad in her kitchen. Patricia used Minas cheese - queijo Minas frescal - in a salad, which is a Brazilian speciality, but bocconcini would do, so you can all try the salad yourself. (And if you prefer reading the Portuguese-language version, then click here).

PORRU - LEEK
Chicken and Leek Pie was the entry submitted by Arfi Binsted (Tuakau, New Zealand) of HOMEMADES: A Joy of Being Domestic. Arfi has been struggling with sinusitis and recovering from the loss of her father-in-law. Lets hope that the Leek & Chicken Pie is

ROSMARIIN - ROSEMARY
A relative foodblogging newbie Laurie (Anchorage, Alaska) of Tastes Like Home: Mediterranean Cooking in Alaska proudly presents Revithia Soupa aka Lemony Chickpea and Rosemary Soup. The recipe is an example of the delicious dishes presented in her charity cookbook Tastes Like Home: Mediterranean Cooking in Alaska, which you can buy here.

Ramona (Alexandria, VA) of The Houndstooth Gourmet is also presenting a rosemary recipe, namely Rosemary, Olive and Honey Quick Bread. The bread looks beautiful and so comforting that I'm tempted to make it already this week. Luckily, I've got two pots of rosemary on my windowsill, so the ingredients are at hand..

SALVEI - SAGE
Genie (Iowa City, USA) of Inadvertent Gardener has used sage - a herb that abounds in her back garden - to make blackberry-ginger-sage vinaigrette to accompany a fruit salad. Doesn't that sound just delicious?

SEENED - MUSHROOMS
Peter (Toronto, Canada) of Kalofagas: Pursuit of Delicious Foods submitted the sole mushroom recipe this week, risotto with royal trumpets. I thought I know lots of wild mushrooms, but Peter has just introduced me to a new one (Pleurotus erýngii in Latin, kuningausterservik in Estonian).

SIBUL - ONION
As a former resident of Bonnie Scotland, it always delights me to hear from Scotland. So when an email poppled into my inbox from Holler (Scotland) of Tinned Tomatoes, I was very excited and headed straight over to check our her recipe for Apple & Red Onion Chutney. Go and admire the cute labels she has made!

SPINAT - SPINACH
Jennifer is blogging over at Like to Cook and she submitted a recipe for Spinach and chickpea soup. According to Jennifer, it's perfect on a chilly autumn day, which makes it perfect for pretty much anyone living on a Northern hemisphere at the moment :)

SUVIKÕRVITSAÕIED - ZUCCHINI BLOSSOMS/COURGETTE FLOWERS
Haalo (Australia) of Cook (almost) Anything At Least Once is clearly showing how the seasons on the Southern and Northern hemisphere differ. How else could she be blogging about this gorgeous Zucchini Flower Frittata in late October, when I did it back in July?



TOMAT - TOMATO
Susan (Missouri, USA) of the award-winning Farmgirl Fare blog baked a fabulous-looking fresh tomato and basil whole wheat sourdough bread. This bread is extra special, as the recipe was sent to Susan by one of her readers back in August, so it's a fan mail recipe. Susan has a recently started a small artisanal bread bakery at her farm, so no wonder she comes up with this beautiful loaf! (I must admit that Susan's banner is almost as beautiful as mine, so if you haven't seen it yet, then pop over:)

TŠILLIPIPAR - CHILLI
Margot (London, UK) of the Coffee & Vanilla: euro-caribbean food blog is mixing Polish, Dominican and British elements in her kitchen. For this week's WHB she recreates a recipe from UKTV Food, but adds her own twist. The resulting Fruit & Cheese Pastry with Sweet Chilli Sauce looks most intriguing and appetising, using both pears and apples, as well as feta and mozzarella cheese. Margot serves this with sweet chilli sauce, and she also provides a little more information about small and devillish bird eye chilli peppers.

VIIGIMARI - FIGS
Jeanne (London, England) of Cook Sister! blog writes an informative post on figs and shares a recipe for roast figs with balsamic vinegar and pine nuts. Go and read the story about the fig tree in her back garden in Pretoria!

VÜRTSKÖÖMNED - CUMIN SEEDS
Sher (Davis, California, US) of What Did You Eat blog highlights the role of cumin in her chicken and tomatillo stew. The recipe is adapted from Food&Wine, but Sher wonders why the end result has such a different colour in reality compared to the magazine photo. Any suggestions?

LOTS OF DIFFERENT VEGETABLES
Mike (Florida, USA) of Mike's Table has made a vegetable pizza. It's hard to highlight one particular herb or vegetable - the pizza is full of pure vegetable goodness, so do check out the recipe yourself. Mike has also provided good step-by-step photos.

Andrea (Northern Virginia/DC Metro, USA) of Andrea's Recipes has submitted a very informative and helpful post on making vegetable stock. I've only recently started making my own vegetable and fish stock, and can confirm that it makes all the difference (though I do cheat sometimes with my Marigold Vegetable Bouillon powder:)

Gretchen (Lima, Peru) of Canela y Comino is also using a whole range of vegetables for her submitted entry, Thai Style Stir Fried Chicken. There's onions, carrots, mushrooms, and broccoli, and Gretcshen kindly provides nutritional information on all these ingredients.

I'm hosting this week's Weekend Herb Blogging...

... so if there's an excellent recipe (or a fascinating story about) using a herb, vegetable, fruit or even edible flower that you've been wanting to tell other foodbloggers about, now is your chance.

If you're interested in participating, then first check out some WHB rules Weekend Herb Blogging rules, then post a recipe/informative post any time during the week, including a link back to this blog. You'll have until this Sunday evening, October 28th, to send in your entries, and I will post a round-up next Monday.

Please send a link to your WHB entry to nami DOT nami AT yahoo DOT com, putting WHB in the Subject line, and including your name, blog name, location and recipe name in the email.

First entries have already started to arrive, and I hope there will be some new participants joining WHB this week!



Click here to read my previous Weekend Herb Blogging entries.

WHB: These are not blueberry muffins, but black chokeberry ones

When you look at the picture below, then these muffins look a lot like blueberry/bilberry/bog bilberry muffins, don't they? But nope, the berries that lend those dark speckles are not of the Vaccinium genus at all, but Black Chokeberries (Aronia melanocarpa), belonging to the Rosaceae family. It's a popular hedge plant here in Estonia, and because my aunt Vaike has a whole garden hedged off with chokeberry shrubs, a whole basket of ripe black chokeberries landed on my doorstep recently.

Chokeberries?? Never heard of them? What about Aronie à fruits noirs/Aronie noire in French, Schwarze Apfelbeere/Schwarze Eberesche in German, marja-aronia in Finnish, svart aronia in Swedish?? Well, chokeberries, which look a bit like rowanberries (only purplish-black), are considered functional food or nutraceuticals because of its high anthocyanin content. Those very anthocyanins contribute towards the astringency of the black chokeberries, but also gives them 'extraordinary antioxidant strength'. According to Wikipedia,

'a test tube measurement of antioxidant strength, the Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity or ORAC, has demonstrated chokeberry with one of the highest values yet recorded, of 16,100 micromoles of Trolox Eq. per 100 g- [Also the] total anthocyanin content in chokeberries is 1480 mg per 100 g of fresh berries, and proanthocyanidin concentration is 664 mg per 100 g. (Wu et al. 2004)'

(Whatever that means, it sounds impressive. All you need to know is that black chokeberries are incredibly good for you:)

Apart from all those impressive-sounding characteristics, black chokeberries have their place in the kitchen as well. They can be used to make jam (on their own or mixed with apples), astringent juice, and wine. As long as I can remember, my mum & auntie Vaike have made black chokeberry cordial (arooniasiirup) that we dilute with water during the year to make a refreshing drink. And I'll be making this cordial from some of the berries soon. But as I haven't baked for a few days, I decided to make black chokeberry muffins, using a Finnish Marttajärjesto recipe I had bookmarked ages ago. Yes, the dark berries in the muffins are a bit astringent, but they were juicy and delicious, just like superberries are supposed to be :)

Chokeberry Muffins
(Arooniamuffinid)
Makes 12 'European' sized ones



125 grams butter, at room temperature
100 grams caster sugar
2 large eggs
2 tsp vanilla sugar
2 tsp baking powder
350 ml plain/all purpose flour
100 ml milk
150 grams cleaned black chokeberries

Cream butter with sugar, add eggs one by one, mixing thoroughly after each addition.
Mix flour, vanilla sugar and baking powder, then add to the egg mixture together with the milk, stirring just as much as needed to combine the ingredients.
Fold in the chokeberries.
Divide into 12 prepared muffin cases and bake at 200 C for 15-20 minutes.

WHB: This is also my entry to the Weekend Herb Blogging, this time hosted by Susan of Well Seasoned Cook. Click on the logo below for more information about this foodblogging event started by Kalyn, or here to read Susan's wonderful round-up!